The main issue i have even more than anything is what the theory of evolution does not explain which is how life evolved into more complex life form just as a simple random accident. which from observations life tends to center around the median. the extreme often kill themselves off over time. for example to parents of one race usually have a child that is similar to them. they do not have a child of a different race(unless the milkman stopped by to many times) From what I get evolution is saying all parents start having children of other races by random chance. this then becomes the new generation. now using race as one trait could be skin color. could be hair color and so on. is this not what the theory of evolution says or have i misunderstood it? Does it say something different? if I am wrong please clarify so that I can better understand it.

Because God uses FM (F'ing Magic)?

Wow. You should find your high school teachers and smack the hell out of them for allowing you to graduate with such erroneous notions.

I could type for the next hour or so explaining just how completely wrong your notions of evolution are, how evolution really works, why it takes so much time, ect., ect..
However, I'm pretty sure you could research it faster and more succinctly on the internet. Why don't you give that a whirl?
Avoid any sites that mention God, if you want an accurate account.

Seriously, where did you get those ideas about evolution anyway?

If you didn't notice i was giving a general view. As I went on i went to more specific. as one trait such as hair color changing, could be blood type. could be so many more. but as like so many people on here they refuse to address the issue and attack the person. as far as i see it you have lost all credibility a simple general comment on no you have misunderstood, here is a generic explanation for more details check out this site would have expanded on the conversation and lead to an actual discussion.

A legitimate question was asked and you chose to ignore it and attack a person. You really need to examine your faith since your only response is to attack a person when they challenge your faith and belief system.

For anyone else i would love some clarification on the issue. lets actually have a real discussion. no well the bible said it happened so it did. expand on it do some research. there is actually a lot of scientific evidence that you can use to make a logical argument to support each side of the argument. why do we not explore that or are we afraid that the other side might be right?

Whoa there Cowboy. You are assuming quite a bit of non-sense that is not in evidence to support your argument.

First of all - there's nothing demonstratable that needs 10 billion years to accomplish - and where did that number come from? Did you decide to use a nice big round number?

Where are you getting the idea that God used evolution to do anything? Perhaps it is an issue of semantics. You say "Evolution is real", I say - had you said "De-evolution is real", we'd have a basis for agreement. Otherwise, you have stated no valid premises to support your conclusions.

And this "overwhelming evidence" you speak of. Please name just ONE thing for me that is not a subjective conclusion completely devoid of empirical evidence.

Jon,

I have a lot of respect for the spirit of inquiry/investigation with which you are approaching this topic. To be clear, I'm not going to sit here and say that "evolutionary theory is 'the truth' " because I don't believe that, myself.

I jumped in to argue against the '2nd law' objection to evolution because that specific objection is, to my mind, complete BS. There are many valid questions to ask about evolutionary theory - but if you are talking/listening/reading to/with someone who brings the '2nd law' objection into the conversation as if it was a serious point of any merit, thats a sign that the person has no idea what they are talking about.

I've read some Christian apologist literature against evolution, and its just a sad, sad thing that so many people are so ignorant as to take the '2nd law' objection seriously.

As for your further questions - I just spent 5 mintuese looking for a simple, straightforward, yet comprehensive explanation via google, and failed. Wikipedia strikes a decent balance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution

To give a partial answer to your question, I don't think many people believe that 'evolving' to have an new skin color is something which would occur within one generation.

AdventureBegins,

At first I thought Arcamedes mis-spoke when he said the 2nd law doesn't apply to living systems - thinking: the laws of thermodynamics apply to everything, as far as we know.

*Normally*, though, neither creatures nor ecosystems function as thermodynamically closed systems, so under normal circumstances the 2nd law literally doesn't apply to living things. You could contrive such a sitution, though, and find that the second law does hold - and in the process you are likely to weaken or, if you wait long enough, even kill the creature.



I think we have at least a billion or two years before the sun undergoes dramatic changes endangering life on this planet - until then we can leave our system 'open' to input from the sun - and thats all we need to handle the 'entropy' problem.

Evol & creation are totally incompatible. Darwin said so himself. He fully expected to be ex-communicated from his church body for what he proposed.

One simple question for all of the evol theist out there. If a woodpecker was not specifically created to do what they do, but rather evolved of some simpler form. Postulate just how many thousands of these "simpler" forms killed themselves trying to perfect the exact technique that woodpeckers use today to gain access to the inside of a tree. And why would they even want to attempt something so brutal? Look up the make-up of an average woodpecker & be amazed at the sheer genius of design. The shock absorbing skull, perfectly shaped beak, the vertebrae with the proper angle & on & on it goes.

Another problem area that the ET's tend to shy away from is the scientific fact that any current life form that mutates, it loses rather than gains genetic code. A mutation is just that. Something less than the original.

Micro-evol = yes. Macro-evol = no.

Just what fossil records support evol? Unless they've been "doctored", the answer would be none.

And as far as entropy goes, it doesn't address the fact that our galaxy is still expanding not contracting. The ET's can't figure that 1 out either.

Lastly the "age" issue. Ever wonder why the lunar lander, used in the Apollo moon missions, had such large saucer shaped landing pads? Well, based on erroneous data postulated about how old the solar system is, the NASA scientists expected the dust on the surface of the moon to be several feet thick. And the large pads were designed to prevent the lunar lander from settling in too deep. Weren't they surprised when in fact they found that the thickness of the dust was only a couple of inches. And don't go there with the whole "it was faked" non-sense. Myth busters recently ran a series & busted everyone of the supposed moon landing faking accusations. Check it out for yourself on discovery.com.

peace-out

Nope, just don't think so

The suggestion that God used evolution is in the first post. That was the question.

As for the overwheling evidence that evolution is real all you need to do is watch life forms with a very short life span. For example, flys taken into space lose their wings in only a few generations. They no longer need them in a zero the gravity enviroment.

Evolution is also why we need a new flu shot each year. The virus keeps evolving.

If you want more I suggest you read a few good books on the subject. "The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins would be a good place to start. He lays it all out clearly and even goes into all the arguments that disagree with him.

Wnat more? How about this debate between Richard Dawkins and Francis Collins from TIME mag.

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1555132,00.html

And don't call me cowboy.

it was actually a professor who brought that up in one lecture is where i first heard it. his argument was the universe as a whole. ill admit there are some flaws to it but it does raise some interesting points when you do start looking into it. To me any point raised is often worth addressing to automatically dismiss them to me seams arrogant.

As far as the skin color. any trait that is unique to a race is possible, although not probable, to develop from other races. After all how different is the DNA from Europeans to Mexicans? or Asians to Blacks? skin color changing is just the amount of pigmentation that the body says to have. this happens all the time but not in the way most think. albinism is where there is no pigmentation. could it not work in reverse? Anyways it seems like we both agree that the theory is flawed. so arguing between us is rather futile. the only argument really is why we believe and that really is a whole another thread entirely. Should we start that one up. call it why do you think evolution is flawed?

Perhaps biblical scholars should rethink their time scale.

If god's day is a billion stead of a 1000. Evolution becomes his tool.

How old does science say the earth is?

Perhaps god is not done with creation.

You are talking about micro-evolution & I don't disagree with you about the adaptation effect. What you didn't address is macro-evolution. Even though the flies no longer produced wings, because they didn't need them, they were still FLIES. Not something else farther up the food chain.

Deal with the question at hand, not dodging it like like a J-W at your door who can't explain their position about who Jesus really is.

Did you read the link I posted? It's all there. How about the book I recomended? It's there too in much more detail.

If evolution wasn't true we wouldn't have mordern biology.

Let's look at this from a slightly differant angle.

Artificial selection.

Animal breeders select animals to breed because they want a spacific trait. They have bred cows that are stupid, and produce lots of milk for example. They have bred dogs that can run much faster than any wolf (where all dogs came from). If humans can seletively breed animals to serve a purpose why can't nature select animals that are better at surviving? The answer is that it does! All the time!

Just read one good book on evolution and you will understand so much. Enolution is so simple and beautiful and wonderful. It is the best idea in the history of Man.

is it always the best that survive or the ones that produce more rapidly?

With a question on the flies does gravity alter the development because of evolution or because of the weightless environment they do not develop correct? Also do the wings disappear slowly or quickly. What I mean by slowly is each generation they get smaller. Because if they get smaller with each generating then evolution could easily be proved by bringing them back down to earth and seeing them grow back to normal. Did this occur?

the other question this post brings to mind have you read it? If so do you take his research at face value or do you scrutinize it with the same level you would any other evidence that would contradict evolution? If the answer is no then I suggest that you are being biased in research. Weighing researched should always be unbiased regardless of source. when it is not we often have faulty studies because we look to discredit the information that may disprove what we believe.

This has been done MANY times, in COUNTLESS threads, each time it is presented to you, you come up with a new reason why you can't look at it.

So please, tell us how this time will be any different..

i am new as i am sure others also are so why not enlighten the rest of us?

Recent studies show that skin color has evolved into all the various shades seen over the course of about 12,000-18,000 years. Quite rapidly in evolutionary terms.

It is not arrogance nor closed minded to completely dismiss the idea that the 2nd law of thermodynamics is incompatible with the theory of evolution - anyone who thinks so simply doesn't understand the 2nd law of thermodynamics: simply put, it only applies to closed systems.

I'd wager that you did not have a physics professor at a state-recognized university claiming that living systems (or evolutionary theory) violated the 2nd law - though of course you might have a theology or philosophy professor - especially at a Christian university - stepping way outside of their area of understanding.

Do you really think he has an argument? If so, what is it, exactly? If you consider the universe as a closed system, there is abundant increase in total entropy, more than enough to compensate for local decreases in entropy in living systems (or even entire planets with life on them).




Sounds like you agree that so called 'micro-evolution' happens.



I don't see evolution as a single theory, but a massive conversation spanning generations with a multitude of inter-related ideas/views. I agree with 'evolutionists' that the central tenets are related to 'things which actually happen', but I disagree with the idea that the current body of accepted ideas is anywhere close to being 'a complete explanation'. As the decades pass, we gain better and better understandings. One day we may have the technology to scan an entire genome of a paritcular animal for a few dollars in a few minutes, and proceed to scan a large percentation of the individuals in a population (from lab rats/flies to wild animals to people) for many generations, feed it all into a computer, and make huge advances in our understanding of just how evolution really works. I think there are some big surprises on the way, which may not dramatically contradict current theory, but will make it look childishly incomplete.